


Cleansing, wherever there is light

by LLitchi



Category: Offline TV - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Love Triangles, M/M, Toastkkuno endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:21:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27163775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LLitchi/pseuds/LLitchi
Summary: Mob AU. The most valuable assets the Scarra family still owned was Toast’s restaurants, where most of the money was actually made selling pizzas and only very occasionally through some light money laundering and fraud. The police insultingly referred to them as the Bread family. Get it? Because they sold pizzas? Scarra talked about this at least once a week.A love triangle, a fast-declining crime family, and other stuffs of life.
Relationships: Corpse Husband/Sykkuno, Disguised Toast/Sykkuno
Comments: 83
Kudos: 356





	1. Second impression

**Author's Note:**

> I never planned to write for this fandom until I saw the love triangle and then I was like, sign me the fuck up.

The problem to start with was that the world as they knew it would soon come to an end. Just the week before some fucking loser killed the Gambino boss, pumped ten bullets into him, just some fucking moron with a gun who walked up to Frank Cali, shouted at him about some conspiracy shit and managed to kill him because he was alone. That was unimaginable even twenty years ago, a boss being caught without security by his side, a boss not needing protection because the families were all too weak to fight among themselves and no one wanted open warfare. If there was war they would all be crushed by the cops. If there wasn’t war they would still die off one by one, like a behemoth, caught unawares by the new dysfunctions of modern society for which the organizational structure innovated some hundreds of years ago in the Italian countryside was wholly unprepared. The twenty-first century marched on without a care for the old world.

So Toast wasn’t surprised when the cops came and arrested Scarra. They were even worse off than the Gambinos, really. The most valuable assets the Scarra family still owned was Toast’s restaurants, where most of the money was actually made selling pizzas and only very occasionally through some light money laundering and fraud. The police insultingly referred to them as the Bread family. Get it? Because they sold pizzas? Scarra talked about this at least once a week.

“That means they don’t have anything on us,” Scarra would say. “They don’t know anything except that we sell pizzas.”

And Sykkuno would say, without apparent fear, “But we _don’t_ do anything except selling pizzas,” and Scarra would chase Sykkuno around the house until they both ran out of breath while Michael went off on insane ideas for what they could do instead of selling pizzas, and Lily would nod along and most of the time they didn’t actually do Michael’s insane ideas, because they were insane.

But occasionally they did have to do things that were not selling pizzas. Things that could lead to Scarra’s arrest.

***

Toast used to do these things himself. Back when he wasn’t simultaneously running five pizza restaurants he used to plan some really sick kills with Sykkuno, the two of them always together, at first reluctantly and then by habit. There was one time it got close, Toast dropping off a body at a construction site and Sykkuno in the getaway car, when a random cop decided to patrol by and sweep the entrances. Toast ran for his life to the back, ran without knowing Sykkuno will be there, but Sykkuno was right there, at the East side on 5th Street that led to a getaway route that he knew Toast liked, even though it was a side that was fenced off. Toast just climbed over the fence and they drove off, clean as anything, Sykkuno nearly hysterical behind the steering wheel, probably had been hysterical ever since he saw the cop. But he still did it, still made the correct move and read Toast’s mind. After that Toast didn’t feel as comfortable on a job with anyone else. They couldn’t tolerate any margin of errors for things like this, so why not always work with someone who could read his mind? 

The huge drawback to partnering with Sykkuno was that Sykkuno didn’t like to kill, that Sykkuno couldn’t intimidate a small kitten, and that Sykkuno was a squish. Sykkuno was generally incompetent at any and all parts of being mafia, really, except for the part where he worked well with Toast and Toast was ace at being mafia. There was no reason in the first place why Sykkuno should have been drawn into this. It made no sense. He should have been kicked to the curb a long time ago and yet he’s still there, eating their food and living in their house and being pure shit at his job.

To be fair, Sykkuno’s original job was being a waiter and he was okay at that. Toast hired him on as the sole applicant, everybody else having acquired enough common sense and deciding to stay away from the known mafia front. Sykkuno was either too new in town to realize that the restaurant was a front or he just really wanted a job. In any case Toast hated Sykkuno in his interview and hired him anyway.

In the beginning it was an open question whether or not Sykkuno would even be able to talk to the customers. He was nervous and twitchy and constantly covered his mouth whenever he spoke, thereby making himself look like he was diseased and probably should not be handling any kind of food. And then, to Toast’s slow dawning horror, female and gay customers kept finding that charming instead of irritating, and suddenly they had an influx of business. People who came because they wanted Sykkuno to ask them what they wanted for lunch and recommend them what pizza to order, and Sykkuno would talk up the pizza and he’d stammer about how Toast was such a good cook and they would believe him. Some people even came back because they liked the food.

Of course Sykkuno found out about the mafia thing right away, if it was ever a secret to him. He was bright enough, no matter how much he pretended not to be. That was the moment Toast took a second look at Sykkuno, when Horowitz was coming over to talk about wanting a special deal on the lots that used to be the public school, and could they talk to someone in Community Land Trust on his behalf. Toast can clearly remember that day. Horowitz was coming over, Scarra was waiting downstairs for him, but when Sykkuno saw Horowitz come in he made a high-pitched noise behind his hand and pulled Toast over.

Toast was in the kitchen then, and Lily was the one showing Horowitz in, and Sykkuno just barged into the kitchen, made straight for Toast and tugged on his apron and whispered furiously, “He’s wearing a wire. Toast, he’s wearing a wire. Toast you have to stop him.”

And Toast didn’t know then the reason that he trusted Sykkuno immediately, the reason that he just ran like mad downstairs to tell Scarra to stonewall Horowitz, to deny everything, to tell Horowitz that he made a mistake and that they didn’t know anyone in Community Land Trust who could help him with a deal on the lots. Horowitz would have to go through the bidding process fairly like everyone else, the city was real careful about that, no funny real estate business this side of the river, no siree. And it turned out to be the correct move. Horowitz _was_ wearing a wire. Horowitz turned witness against them in a case that went nowhere because they didn’t say anything stupid on tape. And only in retrospect could Toast figure out why he instinctively trusted Sykkuno even though he didn’t like Sykkuno back then, because at that moment Sykkuno began to make sense. That moment gave Toast the solution to a puzzle Toast didn’t realize he was building in his head. Sykkuno as a person didn’t make sense until it became clear that Sykkuno knew more than he let on, that Sykkuno knew they were mafia, probably from the very start, and that whatever Sykkuno was hiding behind his hand Toast wanted to figure out.

They developed a working relationship after that. Or, as Sykkuno would put it, they became friends.

***

A myriad of new things Toast learned and began to catalog about Sykkuno. Sykkuno’s tone of voice when he had a secret. The infuriating way Sykkuno refused to accept any compliment. Sykkuno’s desperate desire to be loved.

Sykkuno’s paralyzing fear of being rejected.

Most inexplicably, Sykkuno’s instant and unquestioning affection for Toast himself, despite said fear, a real devotion that at first seemed like just exaggeration of Sykkuno’s easy friendships with everyone else in the family. But no one could miss the way Sykkuno craved Toast’s approval and needed Toast’s assurance, or the fact that just Toast’s presence in the room visibly made him feel more secure. All of which was real fucking bothersome, actually, because how could Sykkuno just put all of that on someone he barely knew? Toast was fucking terrified at the responsibility, and at the possibility that had Toast not been in the mob Sykkuno would not have gotten involved himself.

Lily asked Sykkuno once. Lily was nosy and fearless sometimes, and she asked Sykkuno why he decided to join them. Why would a college graduate in something actually useful join a fast-declining crime family? Simple question, which meant that Sykkuno would dodge it with his life. After endless attempts with “what do you mean, I just wanted to make friends,” Sykkuno finally said that he didn’t really know why himself, please don’t ask him anymore Lily, honestly he didn’t really know why, he just knew that he wanted to always be on Toast’s side, wherever Toast’s side was. That was it. He didn’t think about it too hard. It was a decision he felt with his heart rather than thought through with his brain.

Obviously, Lily told Toast the next day. Equally obviously, Sykkuno knew that Lily would tell Toast, and Toast knew that Sykkuno knew, and Sykkuno knew that Toast knew that he knew. Toast then had the option of ignoring it entirely and avoiding Sykkuno for a few days, but Toast wasn’t made of stone, and it wasn’t every day that a handsome boy fell for a low-level capo. So Toast took Sykkuno out to lunch and they talked about nothing and still had fun and Toast thought that he could do this, he really could. It wasn’t exactly a hardship to look out for someone whose company he enjoyed and treat him special sometimes. They all treated Sykkuno a bit different anyway, all of them in the family did. They understood that Sykkuno wasn’t cut out for this. Without ever discussing it between themselves and to varying degrees of success they have all tried to keep Sykkuno’s hands clean, kept him away from the executions and the brutality, like some last bastion of hope for the rest of them, a candle in the darkness, cleansing wherever there was light.

***

Rae sympathized with Toast. Out of all of them Rae sympathized with Toast the most. She took pride in her kills, she couldn’t tolerate squishes, and she despaired at Sykkuno’s complete lack of spine. All the same she softened as soon as Sykkuno followed her around like a puppy dog, almost marveling at this Darwin-defying creature who had lost all of his natural survival instincts and tended to befriend people who would otherwise eat him alive. And Rae laughed like a hyena when Toast confessed that he didn’t really know what to do with Sykkuno, that Toast was at a loss, that the more Toast understood about Sykkuno the more he felt he couldn’t begin to make sense.

“You mean,” Rae said when she finally stopped laughing, “why did Sykkuno fall for you of all people?”

“Yeah.”

“Considering that you’re straight and he is debilitatingly terrified of being rejected.”

Toast scratched at the top of his head.

“Actually, that part I get, in a weird way. Sykkuno relieved himself of the prospect of ever having to be rejected, because he would never ask me out in the first place. Why would he if I was straight?”

Rae grinned. “You can really read him, huh.”

“But he could have picked any other number of unattainable people. Scarra. Poki. You. Hell, Lily and Michael.”

“C’mon.” Rae rolled her eyes. Bumped his shoulder. “You’re a cool guy, Toast. Sykkuno admires you the most. It’s not so calculated. Part of it is always involuntary.”

Toast considered this. Maybe when the shine had worn off of Toast, and maybe when Sykkuno could see Toast more clearly, not as a cool guy who looked out for everyone but as a man helpless to stem his family’s decline, then Sykkuno would be able to move on to somebody else.

But, said a voice in the back of his head, was Sykkuno not the one who could sometimes read Toast’s mind? Was Sykkuno not the one who could immediately see Toast for who he was? Sykkuno was never once fooled by the gruff exterior. Sykkuno, as Rae took pains to remind him, liked Toast from the very start.


	2. And then there were three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Corpse enters the picture.

Toast didn’t know if Sykkuno could kill, in the beginning. They gave Sykkuno a gun and told him how to use it and most of them thought that if the moment called for it Sykkuno would probably be able to make the kill. Sykkuno was unexpectedly ruthless sometimes, and ever practical, and anyway the rest of them got over it already, even Lily did. Lily, who still ducked her head into Michael’s chest whenever she saw anything violent on the screen. Lily, who used to hide behind Poki when she came out to the construction sites. But Lily was made from the same stuff as her family and Lily could kill, if it meant protecting the people she loved.

They soon learned that Sykkuno could not. It was just a routine job. It started with Poki and Poki was their union girl. When Poki wasn’t staying over at the house she was off picketing some site in the Bronx, or she was organizing some new group of construction workers. The thing was, unions, like old crime families, were dying too.

“What I hate most is the disrespect,” Poki said. They were all having a late dinner at Toast’s restaurant, all customers having been ushered out. Toast and Sykkuno were in and out of the kitchen, plying them with food, while Poki talked about the new developer who kept using scabs for his site. They tried picketing and they tried raising trouble and the asshole never budged. Somebody fired a shot into the air last time and still he wouldn’t even meet with them. He either had balls of steel or he just wanted his operation to go bankrupt so he didn’t have to pay his creditors.

“Either way,” Scarra said grimly. “Something’s got to be done.”

“That union is one of our last,” Poki said.

Toast sat down. He didn’t like going out to yell in the developers’ face and he didn’t like talking to the local media like Poki would but he could do this for them, at least.

“We can use a pipe bomb again,” Toast said. “Michael can make it. I’ll set it where no one gets hurt. We just need to put the fear of god into them.”

Poki sighed.

“On the South side there’s a wall that wouldn’t fall on anything.”

“Okay. That’s good.”

Scarra dug back into his food.

“Sykkuno can go with you.”

Scarra said that knowing Sykkuno was never worried about a job if he could go with Toast.

“Sure. I can go,” Sykkuno said, in the tone of voice of someone who never learned that his heroes could be fallible.

And maybe Toast should have seen it coming. Maybe if Toast had been more vigilant or if he had scoped the site out first he could have seen a car that shouldn’t have been there. But that night Toast planted the bomb and waited and waited and Sykkuno didn’t come to pick him up. Sykkuno didn’t answer his phone either, the once, twice, three times when Toast called. It was properly terrifying, right then, to have shared this almost telepathy with someone else for so long and then for it to suddenly go dark, for there to suddenly be dial tone silence on the other side of his mind. It was panic making. Toast walked around that night feeling his body slowly die in cold dread.

Toast still had to go home. He still had to leave the scene of the crime or he could have been seen by anyone who happened to be out on the street. He had to go home and let the others handle it, but all night he kept walking around that area hoping to catch sight of messy black hair or that damn gray Corolla rounding the corner of the street, his heart in his throat, every moment more agonizing than the last.

In the end Sykkuno found his way back to the house himself. He was hysterical and he kept apologizing. He didn’t calm down until Toast came back and sat him down in the big couch and hugged him properly, both of them shaking a little, Toast’s arms like vice around Sykkuno’s thin shoulders, thinking hysterically that if he let go Sykkuno would just disappear into thin air.

Sykkuno never stopped apologizing.

“I couldn’t do it,” he said. “Corpse saw me and I couldn’t do it.”

Corpse? Why was _Corpse_ there? Corpse was this annoying, deep voiced twerp who came to the restaurant every day to flirt with Sykkuno while Sykkuno pretended to be oblivious. An obnoxious customer who monopolized Sykkuno’s attention and caused every other table to have to wait like half an hour to get their orders taken. And then Toast understood.

“He was scoping out our place. That’s why he was at the restaurant every day.”

“I know,” Sykkuno sobbed. “As soon as I saw him I knew. I drew the gun and he kept saying that he was just at the construction site by accident, like I was an idiot.”

Scarra’s voice was like ice.

“Then what did you do?”

“I got him to go with me to a back lot. His voice was still calm all that time, like he knew I wouldn’t kill him. I told him to give me his badge. I took a picture of it.”

Sykkuno looked up.

“And then I let him go.”

Toast tightened his arms. For the first time in his life he felt scared of Scarra.

Scarra’s face was unreadable. “Why did you let him go?”

“He promised he wouldn’t tell anyone. Scarra, Corpse promised.” Sykkuno was looking around at all of them, searching for understanding. Belatedly, painfully, Toast realized that Sykkuno was scared for Corpse, not for himself.

Sykkuno kept talking.

“Toast, Scarra, I know he might have been lying but I could tell. He was surprised to see me there, like he thought I was just working at the restaurant and I wasn’t involved in all of this. And then he said that if it implicated me he wouldn’t report it back. Toast, I think he was telling the truth.”

Toast shook his head.

“Corpse is not a good guy, Sykkuno.”

“I know,” Sykkuno said immediately. “I know. But he isn’t such a bad guy that he deserved to die.”

Nobody they killed deserved to die, because death was not something you could deserve.

“Toast?” Scarra asked. “What do you think?”

“I trust Sykkuno.” Toast shrugged. “I trust his judgement.”

Rae was there. She wasn’t over often because she was undercover at Vice and it was dangerous for her to be seen with them. But she would help them with this. She would help if Sykkuno was missing.

“I saw the way Corpse looked at Sykkuno,” Rae said. “I trust that.”

Toast saw it too. Toast didn’t like it, but that kind of forlorn longing couldn’t be faked.

“That the guy who always tipped fifty percent and brought snacks for Sykkuno to eat in the middle of his shift?” Scarra asked.

Unexpectedly, Rae giggled. “One of them, yeah.”

Scarra ended up sending Rae home and getting everyone upstairs to bed. Sykkuno was emotionally exhausted, though the rest of them were still thrumming with adrenaline. There wasn’t anything they could do about it now. It wasn’t like everyone didn’t know Sykkuno was a squish, a liability, and beloved, all the same. Lily clung onto Michael a little harder, contemplative and sad, as if mournful of something like her own innocence lost. It was that day, probably, that all of them decided to do whatever it took to keep that last bit of innocence, if not for Sykkuno then for themselves, for when they meet god.

***

Corpse turned out to be part of the NYPD’s Organized Crime division, and Corpse, whatever he was, kept his word. The bombing went unsolved, the developer went bankrupt and the union was happy. That was one rare job that went right, actually, in the cursed last couple of years they had had. The only drawback was that Corpse didn’t stop showing up at the restaurant and he didn’t stop flirting with Sykkuno. Whenever Corpse stopped by Toast seethed in the kitchen while Sykkuno stammered at the customers in the front of the house, at first nervously glancing at Corpse, and then forgetting himself and just sitting down and chatting happily. Occasionally Corpse would ask Sykkuno to turn witness against Scarra, and Sykkuno would offer Corpse money to work undercover against the cops.

“Not a lot of money though,” Sykkuno would say. “I don’t have a lot of money.”

“I could provide for you,” Corpse said.

“ _What_?” Sykkuno covered his mouth.

“What?” Corpse answered, looking around.

Everyone said they were cute together. As far as Toast was concerned, everyone could go to hell.

***

It wasn’t like Toast was jealous. How could Toast be jealous of someone who never once posed a threat? It was clear that Sykkuno adored Corpse and it was equally clear that Sykkuno’s feelings about Toast didn’t change. Sykkuno and Corpse could be deep in conversation and Toast could bark out an order and Sykkuno would instantly be called back to his side, loyal and happy and pleased to be needed. Corpse could bring Sykkuno some fancy chocolate and Sykkuno would still cherish the cheap lunch that he and Toast shared better, because it was just different, like apples and oranges. The two things could not be compared. Sykkuno-and-Toast was qualitatively different from Sykkuno-and-Corpse, and different from Sykkuno-and-anyone-else. Nothing could change that. Toast pitied Corpse sometimes, this quasi-tragic and stoic figure, who could do nothing about loving a man who loved somebody else.

Rae asked Toast once, “You’re not worried about it? Not just a little bit?”

“Am I worried that Sykkuno will betray us?” Toast repeated the question. “Are you?”

“What?” Rae laughed. “No. I meant aren’t you worried that Sykkuno will fall in love with Corpse instead?”

Toast shook his head. “Rae, why _aren’t_ you worried that Sykkuno will betray us?”

“It’s Sykkuno!”

“Exactly,” Toast said. “It’s something you know with your heart. You just know.”

How could Toast not know it? Just from the way Sykkuno loved saying Toast’s name alone. Rolled Toast’s name around in his mouth. Tasted its sound. Said it with different inflections. Toast! _Toast_. Tooaasttt….

Rae considered this. After a moment she heaved a long, regretful sigh.

“Poor Sykkuno. Poor Corpse.”

“No,” Toast said without thinking. “Just poor Corpse.”

“Wait.” Rae shook his shoulder. “What? Toast, what are you saying?”

“I don’t know,” Toast said. He _didn’t_ know. But the way he felt about Sykkuno, he thought there was no reason why Sykkuno would be unhappy about that.

***

Toast took it slow. Even when crime families were crumbling around them, they had all the time left in the world. A real Fall of Roman Empire sort of vibe, where they only die in slow motion, and then, all at once. One thing Toast liked to do was talking about vague plans to vacation in Italy in the future, sometimes plans to even live there, and he’d always have Sykkuno be there too. He’d take Sykkuno to Sicily in the summer and Florence in the spring. Sunny vineyards, cobblestoned alleys, decadent villas. They would be walking down the Via della Conciliazione toward Saint Peter’s Square and Toast would be talking about how Pope Sixtus V changed the face of the city, and Sykkuno would be trotting behind him, carrying all the bags. Sykkuno would get starry eyed talking about it too. He’d keep asking, “Where’d you take me, Toast,” and he’d keep saying, “If you guys pay for the trip you can just treat me like your personal servant,” and, “It doesn’t have to be Italy, I’d be happy to go anywhere with you, Toast,” and he was seemingly unconcerned about setting himself up for disappointment at all.

Scarra disapproved.

“It has to be Italy,” Scarra said. “We have to set you up with a real Italian suit instead of these cheap t-shirts.”

Toast closed his eyes. He could see it. Better days with all of them taken off work, Scarra not having to worry about keeping the mayor happy and off his back, Poki relaxed and not planning another sabotage, Rae back with them instead of the police, Lily just on her piano, and Michael making lasers or something instead of bombs. Toast leaving the restaurants for someone else to run. Sykkuno laughing freely, maybe still ducking his head but no longer covering his mouth with his hand. The two of them sneaking off on Toast’s whim while everyone else was on some museum expedition, maybe wandering into one of the smaller, austere churches with fat Tuscan columns and deep, musky smells. Toast had been to Italy once, a long time ago, and it occurred to him that it would be nice to show Sykkuno everything himself.

“I’d like that,” Sykkuno said, smiling at Toast shyly.

Toast’s heart felt weak.

“Soon,” he said. “We can go soon.”

That was about the time when Scarra got arrested by the cops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a certain Among Us game where Toast and Sykkuno got impostor together and Sykkuno just couldn’t kill Corpse so Toast had to do it for him


	3. Infallible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end, one way or another.

The court remanded Scarra. Flight risk, they said. The son of a bitch mayor didn’t answer Toast’s calls, and neither did the prosecutor whose daughter they got into a fancy private preschool. It was election season after all, and incumbents wanting reelection had to be tough on crimes, had to please the cops’ union, regardless of the fact that mafia members made more diligent canvassers than fat-ass cops. Suddenly everywhere the family turned they were rebuffed, and in one day everything Toast and Sykkuno knew about this town shifted under their feet.

They found out that Corpse never turned Sykkuno in. Apparently, the cops got some wiretapping warrants from a judge and they heard Scarra ordering the kill of the moron who stole from them. This wise guy called Bumpy who robbed the bank where they kept most of their ill-gotten wealth. And the cops let him die, let him get shot in the back of his head just like that so they could charge Scarra with murder. What a bunch of fucking crooks. Anyway. Their lawyer told them they could challenge the legality of the wiretapping warrant with the same judge who issued it, because this was how it worked.

They felt like they were under siege. They spent the first day scouring the house for bugs and reverted to using code for everything, a long-forgotten skill picked up and dusted off, back before Sykkuno even joined them, but he cottoned on pretty quick, as Toast knew he would. “Applaud for” meant “kill.” “Telemarketer” meant “cop.” And so on. It was darkly funny in a way, the moments when they fucked up and caught each other and the sheer absurdity of what their sentences would become. Toast “prayed for” Corpse who’d better not “deliver” to the “aviary” ever again. Sometimes they managed to laugh at that and other times they had friends stop by to ask how they were doing, just so that the house didn’t feel like a funeral at all times of day.

Lily would hold hands with Michael through most of it, making things extremely inefficient and slightly more bearable. But Rae was too scared to even show up at the house. She sent Poki a coded email disguised as some new credit card marketing scam, telling Poki that she was okay but that they were watching her. The cops got the wires. Of course they knew about Rae.

Toast was stuck on lawyer duty. In practice this meant that the lawyer met up with him in his car, the one thing they managed to sweep for bugs three times over, and Toast went over a list of questions all of them had drafted together through the night. Sykkuno had Toast duty, which meant Sykkuno sat there with him, doing nothing but listening and taking notes, sometimes brushing Toast’s arms with these reassuring little touches that kept Toast sane, bit by bit. In the middle of it Toast looked out of the front window and captured Sykkuno’s hand, just to hold for a while, thinking that Italy felt very far away.

“Toast?” Sykkuno asked.

“Mr. Toast,” their lawyer coughed.

“You’re okay, Sykkuno,” Toast said. “You are going to be okay.”

Sykkuno gripped Toast’s hand back, very hard and very warm. Somehow they both managed to not cry.

“I believe you,” Sykkuno said. Their lawyer looked away.

***

Corpse came to the restaurant three times to ask Sykkuno to turn evidence for the state. The first time Lily let out a shrill cry and chased him out with a broom. The second time he let Poki beat him with a ladle until she broke it against a table. The last time Sykkuno didn’t say a word and bundled himself up and went out with Corpse, because Sykkuno was sentimental like that, a pushover, whose heart they all heard quietly breaking when he saw Corpse’s tragic little face.

Toast watched them go with a pang. Maybe he would never see them again. Well, probably not, that was overly dramatic, but Toast couldn’t shake a sort of terrible premonition anyway. He knew that Corpse wanted Sykkuno to turn evidence because the cops wanted to arrest Sykkuno, probably, because the cops wanted to put them all behind bars, and Corpse thought he could save Sykkuno as long as Sykkuno could give something to the state. And if even Sykkuno was in danger, if the one person whose hands they had tried to keep clean could go to jail, then they all were doomed.

Sykkuno came back two hours later. He looked at Toast wretchedly, and Toast grabbed his coat. It was a needy, plaintive, wide-open look that Toast was afraid anyone else could see.

They went out the back of the restaurant. Sykkuno collapsed in a heap on the steps of the fire escape.

“What happened?” Toast asked.

Sykkuno gave a little shudder from the cold and blew on his hands.

“They have something on all of us.”

“I know.”

“He wanted to save me at least.”

Toast sat down beside Sykkuno and fumbled for his hands. They were ice cold.

“You’re clean.”

Sykkuno laughed, his voice hysterical. “I was never clean. Toast, I was never clean. I know you all tried, but as long as I was with you I was never going to be clean. I might as well have killed all those people myself.”

“But you didn’t!” Toast wrapped his arm around Sykkuno’s waist. “You couldn’t.”

“I helped. That was enough,” Sykkuno said. “You know accomplices can also be charged with the same crimes.”

Sykkuno rested his head on Toast’s shoulder. They had never been so close before.

“And anyway I knew it was wrong. Toast, I’m not delusional. In my heart I always knew it was wrong.”

Toast tightened his arm around Sykkuno. He had a feeling that whatever he was really trying to hold onto was rapidly slipping away.

“All this time?”

“Yeah.”

“They weren’t good people.”

Sykkuno wiggled himself closer.

“I know.”

Toast wanted to laugh. Maybe he was no better than the people who came to his restaurant, people who looked at Sykkuno and only saw the parts that they liked and pinned their fantasies on a version of Sykkuno that never really existed.

“Corpse. What else did he tell you?”

“I slept with him. Did I ever tell you that?”

“What?”

Toast sat up straight and pushed at Sykkuno shoulder, the better to see his face. Sykkuno knew full well he never told anyone, let alone Toast.

“I mean, it was so bad,” Sykkuno explained weakly. “I was thinking about you the entire time.”

Toast kept staring at Sykkuno’s face, looking for signs that he was lying or telling the truth. He used to be able to tell with his eyes closed, used to be able to tell just with the tone of Sykkuno’s voice whether he was hiding something or not, but maybe all pretty boys were able to lie like that, easy as anything, just because the cut of their cheekbones made oafs like him want to believe they were on his side.

“Did you at least stop sleeping with Corpse after the cops arrested Scarra?”

Sykkuno shook his head.

“It was just that one time. I felt so bad for him I never did it again.”

Toast gave in to the urge and traced the contours of Sykkuno’s face with his thumb, the back of his knuckles, trying to decipher the most difficult code he ever saw in his life. The only thing Toast found out was that Sykkuno’s skin was as soft as he thought it would be.

“Were you and Corpse just talking about that the entire time?”

“Yeah. It was mostly that. And then I told him something like I’d never be able to forgive him.”

“Ha!” Toast laughed. “You are so honest when it suits you.”

“Corpse didn’t care.” Sykkuno scratched his head. Swept the fringe of his hair out of his eyes. “He told me the only thing he wanted was to keep me out of jail.”

“That’s probably why he stayed in Organized Crime,” Toast said. “He thought he would be better able to keep you safe that way.”

“Toast,” Sykkuno said, turning Toast’s hand over and over and cupping it. “Toast, can I ask you something? Please, I’ve never asked you for a favor before.”

Toast was terrified.

“What?”

There was that look again.

“Can you just, like, stay low for a while? Don’t do anything and let this blow over?”

Toast felt his stomach twist.

“And let them put Scarra in prison?”

“Corpse promised me,” Sykkuno pleaded. “If you just stay low and don’t do anything he can make sure they don’t put you in jail too.”

“What? If we just stay low?”

“No,” Sykkuno said wretchedly. “Not everyone. Just you.”

“You asked him for just me.” Toast shook his head. “How did you manage to even do that?”

Sykkuno dropped his head on Toast’s chest.

“I told Corpse that if he arrested you I would go to the police station and turn myself in.”

Toast let that sink in for a moment, and then he broke out in laughter, the first real laughter he’d had since they watched Scarra go. He laughed and laughed and he kept Sykkuno close to his chest with a hand on the back of Sykkuno’s head. Obediently, Sykkuno stayed.

“Jesus,” Toast said. “You were just playing with our hearts.”

“What? No I wasn’t. What?” Sykkuno protested, but didn’t move.

“I mean,” Toast said, carding his fingers through Sykkuno’s hair. “That’s your superpower. You can read people’s hearts.”

“Not really,” Sykkuno said, as infuriatingly noncommittal as always.

“Hm,” Toast hummed.

“Like, it’s not a superpower if it’s so easy.”

Toast laughed again. Sykkuno made Toast laugh twice in a day, which must have been a superpower in and of itself.

“Damn, Sykkuno.”

“Nonononono, I didn’t mean that. I was just joking.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“That did not sound like you believed me.”

“Never change, Sykkuno,” Toast said.

Never change. Keep loving me. Stay in my arms. We’ll dream of Italy together. At that moment Toast wished for nothing more than to stay there with Sykkuno, huddled on the steps of the fire escape, where he could still pin his hopes of salvation on this heartbreakingly handsome boy and feel the phantom warmth of his love. If Toast could bottle a moment in time and keep it forever, maybe he would choose this one and turn it over and over in his memory for those lonely nights in prison and for the dog days of hell, places for which they were destined, all of them, as Sykkuno already knew a long time ago.

“Toast, do you promise?” Sykkuno asked.

“You asked Corpse just for me,” Toast repeated.

“It wasn’t like Corpse could singlehandedly protect an organized crime family.”

“No,” Toast said. “Why me?”

“Uh,” Sykkuno stuttered. “Uh.” They had never actually talked about it before. “What?”

“Why me?”

Sykkuno moved to escape.

“You know why. Oh my god.”

“Sykkuno,” Toast barked. “Stay. Tell me why and I’ll think about it.”

“Really?” Sykkuno stopped trying to wriggle out of Toast’s arms. “You will?”

“Suuure…. I mean, I’m not saying yes, but,”

“It’s because you’re the most important person to me,” Sykkuno said immediately.

“Yeah.” Toast rolled his eyes. What a perfectly anime thing to say. “That’s not what I meant.”

“But that’s it,” Sykkuno said plaintively. “That’s how I feel.”

“Really,” Toast said. He was getting annoyed now. He remembered exactly the reasons why he hated Sykkuno at first.

“ _Toast_.” Sykkuno looked panicked. But he was staring at Toast’s mouth.

Toast took pity on him. Toast tipped them forward and pressed the softest kiss on Sykkuno’s lips. He didn’t think twice about it, and he never questioned if he misunderstood how Sykkuno felt, because he might have been wrong about some things but he wasn’t wrong about this. This was what he meant when he was talking to Rae. There were some things they just knew as immovable truths in their heart.

When Toast pulled back Sykkuno’s face was pink and his eyes were very, very wide.

“Is this what you meant?” Toast asked.

Sykkuno nodded vigorously, but seemed unable to speak. Or look away from Toast’s mouth.

“Say it, Sykkuno. Use your words.”

“I, I…”

“ _Sykkuno_. Be brave for once in your life.”

“I love you?” Sykkuno said. “I mean, I love everyone, but. Fuck, I don’t know how to do this. Toast, I wasn’t joking, I’ve never done this before.”

“How about,” Toast said, feeling generous. “How about: I think about you even when you’re not in the room. My heart hurts to see you unhappy or sad. And I cherish the sight of your smile, so much that I want to see it every night before I go to sleep.”

“Toast,” Sykkuno said, his voice breaking and his hands coming up to clutch at the front of Toast’s coat. “How are you so good at everything?”

But Toast wasn’t good at everything. It just took Toast so long to understand these things about himself that they became easy to voice, as hard-earned truths tended to be when they threatened to burst out of you with every breath you took. Toast put his nose on top of Sykkuno’s mess of hair and breathed in, smelling chemicals, marinara sauce, and underneath it—low, musky heat.

Sykkuno put up with Toast molesting him for a while, but then he said, “Does it matter that I’m unclean?”

Who in this day and age would use the word “unclean?” But Sykkuno seemed unwilling to ask the question at all. Did it matter that Toast might have fallen in love with a version of Sykkuno that never existed? Did it matter that Sykkuno’s soul was not as pure as fresh fallen snow?

Toast kissed a corner of Sykkuno’s lips.

“Would you have killed Corpse if I was right there, and asked you to do it for me?”

Sykkuno blinked.

“But you wouldn’t have asked me to do that. You would have done it yourself.”

“But what if I really, really wanted you to?”

“You wouldn’t have forced me to do it,” Sykkuno said confidently, by doing which of course he was dodging the question, but he was also a hundred percent right. Pretty boys like him would always have dumb, protective oafs like Toast around to do the dirty business for them.

“I hate you,” Toast said, not for the first time to Sykkuno, and meaning it. Sykkuno exasperated him, constantly provoked him, and refused to be solved by him. Toast dropped his head down. “I hate you so much,” he said, embarrassed with the sheer affection that threaded every single word.

“You’re not going to stay under the radar, are you?” Sykkuno mumbled, his lips brushing against Toast’s neck.

“Probably not,” Toast admitted. “The only way we all get out of this is if the mayor listens to us again, so.”

“Oh god. Oh no. _Toast_.”

“Well, either that or the judge.”

“Huh,” Sykkuno said. “Well. That does seem more doable.”

“Also some evidence will need to disappear.”

“What? No. Toast.” Sykkuno understood exactly what Toast was alluding to. “You can’t tell me to ask Corpse that. I already feel so terrible.”

“You know who feels the worst right now? Scarra, because he’s in jail.”

“Oh my god,” Sykkuno said, but he still happily yielded to a kiss to the top of his forehead. Toast pushed himself up a step on the fire escape so that Sykkuno fell properly in between his lap, a purring, starry-eyed weight that apparently lost all of its inhibitions at the promise of cuddling. Was this what it felt like to be in love, Toast thought crazily, like he could do anything, like he was invincible so long as he had Sykkuno in his arms?

“We can do it,” Toast said. They were no helpless, headless chickens now that Scarra was gone. Why did they ever think that they had to do it through the courts? The lawyer was only there to give the judge and the mayor good enough excuses to go through with what they originally wanted to do anyway. Toast hadn’t run out of pressures. They still had Poki’s unions. They still had Scarra’s dirt. People still fell for Sykkuno on first glance. And Scarra could still hold on until the next election when they could put some other loser in office.

Sykkuno looked up. This close Toast could see himself in Sykkuno’s eyes, still infallible, somehow, after all these years. And Sykkuno leaned in to kiss him, tender and sweet and wholly trusting, because even if nothing else had changed Sykkuno had finally learned to be brave.

“After that we can go to Italy,” Sykkuno said against Toast’s lips, with a smile that Toast felt rather than saw. Toast let himself sink into that dream, a little, and ached to wrap Sykkuno up in one of those cashmere sweaters and Italian handwoven scarves, letting the folds drape on the delicate shape of Sykkuno’s body, so that the cold air of the Florentine spring could not permeate their happiness. They would go from city to city by train, watching the Italian countryside lazily roll by from the window and consenting to share a tiny bed, just because they could no longer bear to be apart.

They sat there for a long time, Toast whispering into Sykkuno’s ear where he would take him in Italy, their conversation low and meandering and intimate. There was a restaurant outdoors that was a small walk from the hotel where Toast had stayed. A European garden with rolling hills and still lakes and shimmering water fountains. An airy villa with tucked away verandas and vaulting cypresses. Elaborate churches, inside, where every fresco gleamed with pressed gold. It would protect them, Toast hoped, this kind of blatant jinx, a defiant invitation for the universe to strike them down where they stood. As if misplaced optimism had the power to ward off actual bad things from happening, and as if their strange little family hadn’t coasted by with the luck of the damned already, for hundreds of years. Toast tightened his arms around his amulet, his mascot, his beloved, and prayed that this courage would last him beyond winter, into the spring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tell me what you think. comments are love <3

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The thing about the Gambino crime boss is real. A Proud Boy killed him and it was so ridiculous everybody thought it was the start of a mob war at first.  
> 2\. If anyone could point me to another Toast/Sykkuno fic anywhere on the Internet I’d be grateful.  
> 3\. I love comments. The more comments I get the more fic I write. Please leave some comments below.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Tryst](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27275803) by [mollyroll](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollyroll/pseuds/mollyroll)




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